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Red Bull reinforced their dominance over Ferrari for the battle of who finishes second to Mercedes as Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen ended the Malaysian Grand Prix in first and second respectively.
Lewis Hamilton was the race leader but his car caught fire which meant the Englishman did not finish the race in Sepang.
Nico Rosberg had some bad luck too as he collided with Sebastian Vettel at turn one and suffered a ten second penalty although the Mercedes driver finished in third.
“A couple of weeks ago I said we’d win a race this year but to be honest I didn’t expect a win to come at this circuit.
I also want to dedicate the win to Jules (Bianchi), I have been waiting for a victory to dedicate to him. My life definitely changed since that incident and I am extremely grateful and appreciative of everything I’ve got, “said the grateful Ricciardo.
Formula One has been pigeon-holed as a sport that is all about the team winning rather than spectacular racing but this weekend we saw a great battle between Ricciardo and Verstappen, who said:
“The battle with Daniel during the race was great and really good fun. We have a lot of respect for each other so you can see we gave plenty of space but were still able to push hard.
The team told us we were free to race as long as we kept it clean, which we did. It is really nice to hear that from the radio.”
Subsequently this was Red Bull’s first one-two on the podium since Brazil 2013 so this must put the team into a great position mentally ahead of the remainder of the season and perhaps 2017.
Dominic Rust